Americans Optimistic About the Future, but Less Content with the Present

As the new decade begins, Americans are optimistic about the future of the country, but at the same time, fewer believe that they currently have a better chance at success than their parents' generation.

The sense of optimism was reflected in polls released today by USA Today/Gallup and CBS News.

The CBS News poll, conducted Dec. 17-22, said 56 percent were optimistic about America's future over the next few years compared to 38 percent who were pessimistic. There was a generational and partisan divide in the result. Younger Americans were more optimistic than seniors. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats were optimistic compared to 58 percent of Republicans.

In the USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Dec. 11-13, 63 percent of Americans were very or somewhat optimistic about the next 20 years compared to 34 percent who were pessimistic. That's lower than the percentage of the public that held that view at the beginnings of the 1990s and the just-ended decade (when the optimists numbered almost 80 percent), but higher than the 51 percent who were optimistic as the '80s began when the Carter administration gave way to the Reagan years after the trauma of the Iran hostage crisis and economic woes.

Democrats were the most optimistic in the USA Today/Gallup survey with 77 percent feeling that way and 62 percent of independents agreeing. But Republicans were split with 50 percent saying they were optimistic and 48 percent saying they were not. Like the CBS poll, younger Americans -- those between 18 and 29 years old, were most optimistic with three-quarters of them holding that view. A little over six in 10 of Americans between 30 and 64 expressed optimism, while 54 percent of those over 65 did so.

But in the CBS poll, only 47 percent said that their opportunities to succeed in life were better than their parents' generation, compared to 62 percent who felt that way in June, 2007 and 72 percent who expressed that view in February, 2000. Twenty-seven percent said their opportunities were worse compared to 18 percent in 2007 and 5 percent in 2000.